Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A Eurasian bird (Corvus monedula) related to and resembling the crows, having black plumage with a gray nape and underparts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The common daw of Europe, Corvus monedula, an oscine passerine bird of the family Corvidæ. It is one of the smallest of crows, being but 13 inches long. It is of a black color, with a blue or metallic reflection. Jackdaws in flocks frequent church steeples, deserted chimneys, old towers, and ruins. where they build their nests. They may readily be tamed and taught to imitate the sounds of words. They are common throughout Europe.
- n. The boat-tailed grackle, Quiscalus major, a large long-tailed blackbird of the family Agelæidæ. Coues.
Wiktionary
- n. A European bird of the crow family (Corvus monedula), often nesting in church towers and ruins.
- n. A Daurian jackdaw, a closely related Asian bird (Corvus dauuricus).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) See daw, n.
WordNet 3.0
- n. common black-and-grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery
Etymologies
- Compound of jack and daw The first element, also present in Low German Kajak, (North Saxon) Jöker "jackdaw", may refer either to its characteristic call, often represented as tchak-tchak, or to the name Jack. The second element means "jackdaw" in itself, from Old English dāƿe, and is cognate with German Dohle. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Are you so weak in natural history or have you forgotten that the jackdaw is a most respectable family bird!”
“Are you so weak in natural history, or have you forgotten that the jackdaw is a most respectable family bird?”
“It proved to be a kind of jackdaw, of huge stature, which scuttled out of the opening, and disappeared into the summit of Will Tree.”
“The jackdaw is a big-brained, extremely alert, very educable, loquacious bird.] [Illustration: _From Ingersoll's "The Wit of the Wild.”
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told
“A few weeks ago at the Tate Modern, my notes say “body parts on a baking tray” and “jackdaw and hooded crow skewered by arrows”.”
15 Ways Modern Art Galleries Can Inspire Writers - by Joanna Penn | The Creative Penn
“Occasionally a jackdaw would rise up briefly to sit on a sheep's back, but the most persistent of these interactions involved a magpie.”
“These are the crows corvidae, such as the raven, carrion crow, rook, and jackdaw.”
“I could tell a beech from a birch, a jackdaw from a jay, cow parsley from catkins.”
“Spur of the Moment puts on stage the jackdaw chatter, the fluffy vulnerability and the vulture behaviour of pre-teen chicks.”
“A jackdaw performs a rollicking tightrope walk along the ridge tiles opposite.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘jackdaw’.
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birds
birds with singular names from
at least 9 English dictionariesaasvogel, aberdevine, accentor, accipiter, aepyornis, agami, albatross, alcatras, alcid, alcidine, amadavat, amokura and 1056 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Scrabble words which start with the l...
juvenile, juvenal, jutty, jute, jut, justness, justly, justle, justify, justice, juster, just and 534 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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Favorite Words
i love words.
ricochet, clavicle, etymology, equivocate, decoupage, dillydally, effervescent, flimflam, haberdashery, hullabaloo, debacle, juxtapose and 210 more...
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...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
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use•ful
palmary, glossolalia, bothum, high-proof, synesthesia, odious, autochthonous, yawp, mordacious, dynamo, dishevel, titely and 414 more...
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hauntedtapedeck's Words
hinterland, palimpsest, palisade, thaumaturgy, sangfroid, frisson, crick, patchwork, susurration, disconsolate, septum, elbow and 119 more...
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Still More Bird Wirds
A work in progress....Birds from around the world (other than endemic to North America).
barbet, hornbill, trogon, bee-eater, bristlehead, wren-babbler, stubtail, blackeye, bush warbler, cassowary, bowerbird, bird-of-paradise and 722 more...
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Luck in the Shadows
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Luck in the Shadows.
belly, barbican, pediment, withers, hirsute, oriel, tabard, telesm, thaumaturgy, switch, spargetaction, towheaded and 125 more...
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'j' words
Because I couldn't think of any the other day, I thought of some now.
justice, jackdaw, jeremiad, jussive, jansky, jark, jarl, jobbernowl, jarta, julep, jinker, jebel and 33 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for jackdaw.
tbtabby Features in the shortest possible sentence that includes every letter of the alphabet: "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz." Unless someone out there knows a shorter one. Nov 8, 2012
brtom "We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university."
Joyce, Ulysses, 15 Feb 5, 2007